2:38 PM, October 11, 2013

Detroit Red Wings center Luke Glendening. / Associated Press

Detroit Free Press Sports Writer

The thing about the NHL, Mike Babcock explained today, is if you don’t do good things, then you have to change things.

And Thursday night’s loss to the Phoenix Coyotes was not a good thing.

“We weren’t ready to play,” the Detroit Red Wings’ coach said. “We didn’t play hard enough. We were foolish in the way we played. We weren’t relentless. It was a tough day.”

So Babcock is changing things.

Forward Justin Abdelkader is off the first line. Daniel Alfredsson is off the second line. Cory Emmerton is back in Grand Rapids, and the Wings called up former Michigan player Luke Glendening to see how he can help the team.

“All I know is that I can’t keep going the way I’m going because it isn’t working,” Babcock said. “I’ve got one line to play.”

Abdelkader, who Babcock said “is playing really well and skating really good,” drops off the top scoring line with Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, to lend his help to one of the team’s other three struggling lines.

And Alfredsson, who hasn’t found a chemistry with linemates Johan Franzen and Stephen Weiss, will move to the third line with Joakim Andersson and Daniel Cleary.

“Our line hasn’t clicked as we would have liked and we need to change something,” Alfredsson said. “Hopefully this can stabilize and spread out the scoring and get everybody going.

But Alfredsson said it’s not just the scoring that the team needs to tidy up, it’s everything.

“We have to tighten up in all areas,” he said.

And Babcock had a laundry list of those areas after Friday’s practice.

Faceoffs. Giving up scoring chances. Not giving up the puck on penalty kills.

He said he couldn’t remember the Wings playing a home game as poorly as they did in the 4-2 loss to Phoenix.

“As a coach, I didn’t do a very good job,” Babcock said. “It’s up to you to get your team ready to play.”

He thinks Glendening will help the team in the faceoff department, and was impressed by the way he played Toronto standout Nazem Kadri during the preseason.

“He’s a thick kid,” Babcock said. “He’s a right-hand shot, ideally you want him to win faceoffs at our level, you want him to be a good penalty killer but we think we’re going to give him an opportunity to find out if he helps us.”

Emmerton went down to AHL Grand Rapids with backup goalie Petr Mrazek.

Jonas Gustavsson will back up Jimmy Howard tomorrow vs. Philadelphia.

Howard was hit up high with a puck in practice – “A stinger,” he said – and left the ice but returned and said he would be good to go for tomorrow’s game.